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High-ranking insurance regulators in Georgia accepted $100-per-head meals and a round of golf from the industry they are supposed to monitor. That spending is legal, though other state agencies discourage it.

The US Health and Human Services Department will take another 30 days to decide whether Georgia can phase in a key provision of health care reform more slowly. Georgia officials wants Georgia exempt from a part of the law until 2014. The provision requires insurance firms to spend no more than 20% of individual premiums on administration and certain other costs.

The state is moving forward to satisfy part of the national healthcare reform act. A panel voted to begin creating an online exchange Tuesday. The exchange is an online resource that would help people without health insurance get a good deal on coverage.

Georgia Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens says, he doubts the state would be able to opt-out of the federal health care law early. Some Georgia health care advocates agree, saying the provision was aimed at states like Vermont that already have near-universal coverage. A spokeswoman for Governor Nathan Deal, however, welcomed the flexibility and promised a plan.

Georgia’s next insurance commissioner is going to get schooled on the national health care reform law this week. Although Georgia is one of 20 states challenging the law in court, Commissioner-elect Ralph Hudgens says the state needs to prepare for what he calls the worst.